


Etched, Curled, Stationed

by Tepre



Series: Prompted one-shots & drabbles [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A tiny bit of infidelity, Georgian and Victorian birthday decorations, Grimmauld place is in love with Draco, House magic, M/M, and will not rest until EVERYONE WHO LIVES IN IT (i.e. Harry) is also in love with Draco, both boys have other partners for like a SECOND but they get together in the end plz don't worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 14:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17726978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tepre/pseuds/Tepre
Summary: The day Draco Malfoy turned 21 was the day that 12 Grimmauld Place had decided, with all the grand and pointed fanfare that a house could manage, that it washimthat was its rightful owner.





	Etched, Curled, Stationed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zerolinak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zerolinak/gifts).



> Originally posted on Tumblr, based on the dialogue prompt (given by the DELIGHTGUL zerolinak): “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they're you." 
> 
> really this was just an elaborate excuse to use the words 'chiffon' and 'coving' and all the other things I've learned watching Lucy Worsley documentaries 
> 
> ENJOY ✨

The day Draco Malfoy turned 21 was the day that 12 Grimmauld Place had decided, with all the grand and pointed fanfare that a house could manage, that it was him that was its rightful owner. _The last of the line of Black_ , was how a wary solicitor had explained it, jumping when Harry banged a fist on the table. _But it’s mine_ , was Harry’s only response, and the solicitor had held his briefcase to his chest – as though in protection. He answered, Not according to the house, Mr Potter.

“What can I possibly do about this,” was Malfoy’s first response, exasperated, a static and blurring face from behind the grate of the fireplace.

“You come here,” Harry told him, “And you tell the house it’s wrong,”

“It won’t care,” Malfoy had said, but Floo’d over all the same. His robes seemed worn, rumpled. A little stained around the edges. The tired embodiment of the Malfoy fortune in shambles.

He’d spent a good hour walking from room to room, astonished. Touching the walls in reverence. The house had redecorated: the wallpapers had washed themselves into soft blues and greens, the ceilings had grown a golden coving, plaster roses. His initials, _D. L. M,_ were scattered throughout the house – etched into plaques, curled around doorknobs, stationed to the bottom of all the chinaware. As though the house itself was lovesick and had spent long afternoons repeating the name to itself.

“Don’t get used to it,” Harry told him, and Malfoy had swallowed, hands shaky as he read his name off the edge of a tablecloth – stitched in with fine gold.

*

The day Draco Malfoy turned 22, Harry woke up and the house was decorated in laurels and chiffon. Everything smelled like sage, like myrrh. The breakfast table was a feast, heaped with grapes and figs and bowls of almonds, marzipan flowers dusted as though with dew.

Malfoy showed up a long hour later, out of breath and sweaty – wearing one of his only two frayed suits – talking fast and angry, saying, “A howler! _A howler_ , I swear! What, what, what is it this time, what cock and bull nonsense would you have me say to the blasted house this—! Oh…”

He’d trailed off, taking in the sight of the living room. The wreaths hanging from the ceilings, the soft cloths bunted between the corners. The cakes, the cushions, the fact that Harry sat, angry and red, in a silk pyjama that had Malfoy’s name emblazoned on its breast pocket. He’d woken up in it. The house had dressed him in it.

“Happy birthday,” Harry said, flat and infuriated.

The next week, on the advise of a House Specialist that charged an offensive amount of Galleons per hour, Draco Malfoy moved into 12 Grimmauld Place. _It should calm down with its master near,_ the man had said, careful not to touch the lace of his sleeve to any surface of Harry’s home.

 _Don’t call him its master,_ Harry had said, and Draco shifted in his armchair, eyes trained on the floor.

*

The day Draco Malfoy turned 23, Harry made sure he woke up in someone else’s bed, in someone else’s home. He showed up again at dinner time and was only half relieved to see no chiffons this time. No silks, no cakes.

Only Malfoy, cooking in the kitchen. Quietly humming along to a song from the wireless.The house had given him a new pair of trousers, a high-collared shirt. Had starched his clothes in the mornings, turned down his sheets for bed.

The only thing it had gifted Harry that year was a goddamn monogram, stitched into every single one of his items.

“Well,” is what Malfoy said, glancing at Harry, standing in the kitchen doorway. “Aren’t you a sight.”

Harry shrugged, sweaty in yesterday’s clothes. His hair a mess. “Happy birthday,” he said, as though it was an insult. He grabbed some crackers from the pantry, made to leave when Draco called after with a,

“Dinner’s in twenty.”

Harry looked back, then away again. He took the stairs two-by-two, opening the packet as he went.

*

The day Draco Malfoy turned 24 he’d gone to visit his mother in France and the house practically sighed around Harry, quiet and forlorn.

“Oh he’s coming back you know,” Harry snapped, annoyed when the wireless kept switching to a different station, looking for a sad song. He was trying to read his paper in peace.

But when evening fell and the lights didn’t come on of their own accord as they usually did – when the kitchen remained a little dim, and Harry realised he’d have to somehow fix his own dinner – Harry found himself sighing into the strange, empty silence of the room. Found himself heating up an old soup from the freezer, recalling the way Draco once called soup a food of the commoners. _Commoners and babies,_ he’d said, fingers deft as he folded a freshly washed pile of napkins.

Briefly, Harry considered calling Neville to see if he’d come over for a drink. Or Ron and Hermione, if they could get a sitter. He considered it, then dismissed it, and went to bed earlier than he’d had in all of his adult life.

*

The day Draco Malfoy turned 25 they threw a party. ‘They’ being everyone but the two of them. But there they still were, unwilling participants in a house full of drunken fools: Draco’s friends and Harry’s friends and both their friends cheering and laughing when the clock struck twelve. Someone started up an off-tune rendition of _happy birthday_ and the rest joined in. Even Hannah Abbott, her fingers laced with Harry’s – leaning tipsily into his shoulder – sang along.

It was well past four by the time they managed to shoo the last of the party out and onto the street, Blaise holding up Neville holding up Pansy. Hannah had already gone up to bed, and Draco was clearing the empty glasses from the coffee table. Harry, a little drunk, watched him from the hallway, swaying and catching himself on the doorway. Anthony came back from the kitchen, took the glasses from Draco with a small kiss to his lips.

“Thank you,” Draco said, quiet. Affectionate.

“Welcome,” Anthony replied, and kissed him again.

Later, crossing paths on the landing – Harry leaving the bathroom, Draco coming up the stairs – Harry held Draco back for a moment, a hand to his elbow.

“Happy birthday,” he said. Draco nodded, flushed, didn’t look him in the eye. They were still pretending Harry hadn’t walked in on him and Anthony the week previous. That he hadn’t returned from work an hour early and saw them in the kitchen, over the dinner table, half undressed and frantic.

*

The day Draco Malfoy turned 26, Hannah left Harry. Anthony tried to comfort him at dinner that night, while Draco remained tight-lipped and terse.

“Look,” Anthony said, putting a hand to Harry’s shoulder. “Probably, it’s better now than later. Probably, you two were never meant to—”

“Don’t touch me,” Harry snapped, shaking off the touch. His voice wasn’t quite his. His heart, a gnarled, unhappy thing – not quite his.

Anthony looked surprised, hurt. Draco looked up, too, gaze heavy on Harry. He looked angry. He looked blazing.

Harry could still remember the heat of Draco’s body through his robes, just a day ago. The way Draco had leaned into him – had pressed him against the wall – the way they almost kissed. The way their stubble caught. The way the muscles of his stomach worked under Harry’s hand. The way Draco had whispered, _God,_ and, _I can’t._ And Harry had swallowed, throat tight. And again, and again.

*

The day Draco turned 27 it rained. A summer rain, the kind that settles the dust and makes the streets smell a little less like heat and garbage, that has the greens in the garden light up, vibrant.

Harry wouldn’t let Draco go back inside the house. He held him by the arm, made him stay where the argument had started – made him stay until they were finished, until they’d said it all, until they’d shouted at each other and accused each other and were done with it. Finally, once and for all, _done_ with it.

“Just—!” Draco tried to wrench out of Harry’s grip. Couldn’t. The rain was soaking through his shirt, darkening his hair. “Just go out and fuck someone else, Harry. Get it out of your system so we can finally act like—”

“I can’t,” Harry said. His voice broke and so he tried again, “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”

Draco looked at him. Looked, searched, his eyes fierce and his breath high and heavy in his chest – nostrils flaring, jaw working. Anthony was inside, in the living room, chatting with Narcissa over a slice of pie.

Draco walked Harry back until they were out of sight. Until Harry was pressed up against the fence, feet a mess in a muddy flower bed. The rain picked up and Harry could taste the water on Draco’s lips, his tongue. On his breath, still sweet from the pie. Draco was holding Harry’s face in his hands, and the press of his body was so close – so insistent – that later that evening Harry would find the indent of Draco’s initials had pushed from his breast pocket into his skin. Mirror-script, over his heart.

*

The day Draco turned 28, 12 Grimmauld Place opened the curtains on its own accord. It opened the windows and let a summer breeze run through the house – setting papers skittering from tables, a tablecloth fluttering. The crystal chime hanging from the French doors to the garden clinked, sweetly. The sound of ice cubes in a glass.

“Happy birthday,” Harry said, a bit voiceless in the morning. He kissed the mole that marked the halfway point of Draco’s back. Chased it with a bite, another kiss. Draco, half asleep, pressed up against him – warm and solid and still making Harry’s hart drop at the sight of him: slow between the sheets, his hair fanned over the pillow. He smelled like sage, like myrrh. Like everything Harry wanted to wrap himself in.

“Happy birthday,” Draco mumbled back, apparently to himself, as Harry brushed his lips to the small of his back.

With a sigh and a creak – and a barely-there pull of magic – the house shifted, re-arranged. A letter was being scripted, a conclusive addition to the pattern of initials found throughout: _D. L. M. P._ , etched into the plaques, curled around the doorknobs, stationed in gold to the bottom of all the chinaware.


End file.
